David Bergdahl
Length of Service: 36 years (1968-2004)
Quality of teaching/research/service:
Although my research has focused on the pedigogical application of linguistics
and American poet, critic and dramatist T. S. Eliot, my teaching has shown
remarkable breadth, ranging from freshman composition and sophomore genre
courses to American and British twentieth-century literature, literary theory, and
graduate seminars on areas as different as American dialects to the sources of
The Waste Land. I have taught courses on the masters of twentieth-century
literature: Saul Bellow, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Phillip Roth, William Butler
Yeats. Courses I have pioneered include the two courses on stylistics, the
application of linguistics to literary study, the exploration of the representation of
family life in literature with readings in psychology (family therapy).
Of my publications I am proudest of three on T. S. Eliot in European publications:
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[book review] Armin Paul Frank, Die Sehnsucht nach der Unteilbaren Sein:
Motive in der Literaturkritik T. S. Eliots in Anglia: Zeitschrift fur Englische
Philologie no. 3/4 (1978), 542-545.
[book review] Monique Lojkine-Morelec, T. S. Eliot: Essai sur la génèsse d'une
écriture (Paris 1988) in Etudes Anglaises vol. 44 no. 3 (1991), 361-364.
"Genre in a Cognitive Perspective: Eliot's Four Quartets, " Revue Belge de
Philologie et d'Histoire, vol. 75 no. 3 (1997), 731-741.
Overall contribution to the University:
Initially a member of the English Language and Linguistics group within the
English department, I elected to stay with the department when Linguistics
branched off to become its own department because in addition to my expertise
as a linguist, I had credentials as a twentieth-century English literature specialist.
Nevertheless, I continued my relationship with Linguistics including a twenty-two
year membership of the Chomsky group (which slowly became the Cognitive
Sciences Study Group), a weekly reading group which focused on issues of
language and mind. In addition to Chomsky himself, we have brought
distinguished linguists and philosophers of language to campus (the latter in
conjunction with the Philosophy Department).
As a linguist I taught MA students in our department’s program and—when
Linguistics separated—undergraduate English majors and students seeking
certification (and then licensure) in the College of Education. There is so much
misinformation and outright nonsense about language in the popular mind that
part of my service to the university (and the larger community) has been
debunking such unscientific claptrap as that associated with “Ebonics” or the
mythical community where “they still speak Elizabethan English.”
During the years 1979-1983 I was director of composition. I transitioned the
grammar-focused and model-based composition instruction to one dedicated to
process (the buzzword of the 1970s) and greatly advanced the
professionalization of composition teaching in the university. I opened my
composition pedagogy class to interested faculty who were preparing to teach
junior composition in their own classes for the first time. Several faculty took me
up on it. When I left the composition post the department and university had
entered a new phase. As an administrator of the English department’s service
component I was able to reduce if not eliminate the paranoia felt by teaching
assistants; I furthered the professionalization of the composition program by
instituting weekly staff meetings under the English 791-2-3 title, during which
faculty assisted in the training and mentoring of new teachers by presenting selfcontained units of instruction; the initial training course for TAs was substantially
improved during my tenure, from a cafeteria of helpful hints for new teachers to
an introduction to composition as a field and to composition pedagogy. Several
TAs carried on educational research involving sentence-combining under my
supervision. The present 171-2-3 courses were sculpted by me and have
remained unchanged for two decades.
In addition in the department I have chaired the undergraduate committee during
1977-1979 and served on the library resources, English language, tenure,
promotion B, budget and rating, composition, computer, part time evaluation,
administrative and graduate committees as well as several ad hoc committees.
I was the department’s chief academic advisor from 1999-2002: I was available
for prospective students and their parents, advised new majors, assigned
advisors (and took over the advising load of people on leave or temporarily
unable to perform their duties), and maintained the necessary records. I also
attended the meetings of the college and university advising council.
At the college level I have served on the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Council
and Distributed Learning Courseware Development Service Committees. At the
university level I have served on the Academic Advancement Center Advisory
Committee, the English Composition Advisory Committee, the University Hearing
Board / Judiciaries, the Post Publishing Board, and on the University Curriculum
Council.
I directed two dissertations: one on Saul Bellow and another on Raymond Carver
and served on numerous English language and 20th-century literature exams and
dissertations. The Carver disseration has since been published. An MA-student
whom I directed in 2001 was awarded the departmental award for the best
master’s thesis that year. Subsequently she has presented the paper at a
professional meeting and it has been placed for publication.
Service to society beyond the University community:
I represented the university at professional meetings: The Modern Language
Association, The Midwest MLA, The Linguistic Society of America, The American
Dialect Society, The National Council of Teachers of English, Conference on
College Composition and Communication, The College English Association of
Ohio and The Poetics and Linguistics Association (UK)
Internationally, I was a Fulbrighter at Georg-August Universität in Göttingen
(Germany) and participated in a departmental exchange with a professor from
The University of Toulouse/Le Mirail (France).
I was involved for many years with the Southeastern Ohio Council of Teachers of
English, including as editor of their journal, Focus: Teaching English Language
Arts; a few issues which I edited were selected for redistribution by The National
Council of Teachers of English—a rare honor. SOCTE, a local NCTE-affiliate,
worked with local teachers predominantly but university students also took part in
our meetings and activities. So our work improved the teaching of language arts
in this section of the state.
I presented public forums on language issues to regional groups in Zanesville,
Chillicothe, Ironton, Jackson, Stewart, Waverly, Marietta, Portsmouth, Lancaster
and Athens in an Ohio Program in the Humanities-funded project; my forums
were the most-requested ones under that grant, administered in 1977-78 by Jim
Davis as part of the department’s outreach effort.
I served Hillel on a committee to consider investment choices for money donated
over the years.